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Summary of the impact

Andrew McGonigle's research is focused on the development of improved
techniques for monitoring volcanic gases, data which are vital for
assessing hazard levels and issuing pre-eruption evacuation alerts. The
instrumentation derived from this research is considerably cheaper, more
reliable and accurate and samples far more frequently than possible
previously. These devices have been disseminated to at least 25 countries
and are now used as internationally adopted standards by governmental
agencies in monitoring and forecasting operations. McGonigle's work led to
a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 2008, the Award citation stating that "his
combination of science and advanced technology has the potential to save
thousands of lives".

Underpinning research

Volcanoes release gases to the atmosphere from their summit craters.
Measurements of these emissions are crucial to understanding and
predicting volcanic activity. For instance, prior to the 1991 eruption of
Mt. Pinatubo a tenfold increase in gas output (flux) was observed,
prompting a mass evacuation that saved thousands of lives.

However, in recent years the applied instrumentation (the correlation
spectrometer COSPEC) had become rather outdated and unreliable, as it was
based on 1970s technology. Volcano monitoring personnel faced increasing
costs and lengthy repair times to maintain these units in operation,
creating particular issues in developing countries where volcanic risks
are high, yet monitoring budgets are modest. The acquired data had very
poor time resolutions and large errors (typically 2-3 data points per
week, and > 50%, respectively) significantly limiting their usefulness
for monitoring purposes.

McGonigle's research has been focused on developing improved
instrumentation for monitoring volcanic gases, thereby overcoming the
above limitations. In particular, he has defined novel hardware protocols
and authored freely downloadable software to enable a compact state of the
art commercially available spectrometer (the USB2000) to be used for
measuring volcanic gases [R1, R2]. This instrumentation is considerably
cheaper, more compact and reliable than the COSPEC (e.g. 1kg vs. 20 kg;
$4k vs. $60k), hence is far better suited to volcanic field deployments.
The device operates by measuring, at a safe distance from the crater, how
much background skylight is absorbed by the released gases, from which
emission rates are determined. He has also pioneered new measurement
configurations using the USB2000, which significantly increase the time
resolution and accuracy of acquisitions [R3].

He has subsequently developed an upgrade to the USB2000-based approach,
using ultraviolet cameras [R4], which image the volcanic gas plumes,
providing a step change improvement in sampling frequency (to once per
second), whilst also delivering a direct and accurate measurement of the
speed at which the gases are transported from the summit craters. The
plume speed, a required component of the gas emission rate computation,
was hitherto obtained using unreliable proxy data from anemometers,
constituting the major component of measurement error. On the basis of the
above developments flux errors have been reduced from > 50% for the
COSPEC, to f0a3 15% for the USB2000 and UV camera approaches [R3, R5].

The above research was conducted by McGonigle at the University of
Sheffield, firstly as a RCUK Academic Fellow (2005-2010), and subsequently
a Reader, following on from preliminary work at the University of
Cambridge where McGonigle was a RA (2001-2002) then NERC Postdoctoral
Fellow (2002-2005), in collaboration with Prof. Clive Oppenheimer
(Cambridge) and Prof. Bo Galle (Chalmers). This work was supported by a
series of grants with McGonigle as PI, e.g. from the Royal Society
(2007-2009), the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia
(2008-2013), the AXA Research Fund (2010-2011) and the Google Faculty
Research Awards program (2013-2014). Other researchers from Sheffield
involved in this research include Dr Robert Bryant, two PhD students and a
postdoctoral fellow: Dr Euripides Kantzas. In 2008 McGonigle was awarded a
$100k Rolex Award for Enterprise for his "vision, achievement and
groundbreaking work" regarding his volcanic gas instrumentation
development work.

The quality and importance of McGonigle's work is further demonstrated by
>1220 journal article citations (h-index of 22; Web of Science, October
2013), in fora such as Nature, by authors from 59 countries, and
in governmental agencies such as NASA, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and the National Center for Atmospheric
Research.

Details of the impact

The USB2000 has had widespread international reach and is now considered
"the new de facto standard in measuring volcanic gas emission rates",
according to the former Director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory
[S1]. The unit has been deployed to almost every degassing volcano on the
planet, in over twenty five countries and on every continent, for
operation by volcano observatories, the governmental agencies responsible
for volcano monitoring and eruption prediction. Since 2008, well over
10,000 survey days of service have been achieved, in countries such as:
Costa Rica, Nicaragua, New Zealand, México, Colombia, Ecuador, El
Salvador, France (Réunion), Vanuatu, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the
USA, Italy, Russia, Japan, Indonesia and Chile. This technology has
particularly expanded access to valuable volcanic gas data across the
developing world. For instance, a volcanologist working within the Centre
for Volcanology and Geological Hazards Mitigation in Indonesia states that
the "USB2000 is far smaller, lighter and cheaper than the Correlation
Spectrometer previously used in this context and as such is far more
suitable for field operation... For this reason these units have been
used extensively now across South East Asia and Oceania, significantly
increasing the volume of data we now have on volcanic degassing in the
region" [S2].

The techniques devised by McGonigle have led to considerably more
accurate and higher time resolution volcanic gas observations than
available previously. The significance of this is confirmed by a scientist
within the United States Geological Survey (USGS) who states that: "volcanologists
are now able to study far faster and subtler processes than possible
previously" and that "This means we can monitor volcanoes in far
more detail than in the past, with impact upon our capacity to forecast
eruptions...These instruments have been used by USGS and extensively
across the globe in monitoring operations and are a valued part of the
surveillance we perform on the United States volcanoes in order to
determine hazard levels in our efforts to ensure appropriate civil
protection for US citizens" [S3].

The former Director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory further
outlines the significance of this enhanced monitoring capability for civil
protection measures: "Hence we now have a far more robust means of
constraining activity and the transitions from passive to eruptive
behaviour with significant implications for our capacity in forecasting
and in civil protection" [S1]. In addition, a volcanologist within
the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia indicates that
the operation of these units on the Italian volcanoes has led to "completely
new insights into how these systems work" and hence a "far more
accurate means of monitoring activity and forecasting eruptions"
[S4]. The USB2000 and UV camera approaches have therefore provided
considerably improved models and data to inform monitoring and predictive
efforts worldwide.

The international reach of these new methods has been expedited by
McGonigle's authoring of a series of freely downloadable computer programs
(VolcanoSO2.exe, Vulcamera and UVolc). The programs facilitate the use of
the USB2000 (and the recent USB2000+ upgrade) and the UV cameras by
volcanologists, the majority of whom are non-expert in the underlying
science of spectroscopy and would not be able to benefit from this
technology without such codes. A member of the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption
Response Team in Russia comments that: "we have been using the UVolc
software for controlling miniature USB2000+ spectrometers to measure the
volcanic gas releases during a number of eruptions", and that the
code is "easy to use by non-experts" and "leads to far more accurate
results than available previously. This approach to developing no cost
software for wide circulation across the volcano community is a great
help in ensuring the wide reach of these very helpful new technologies"
[S5]. Since 2008, these programs have been downloaded around 100 times
(this corresponds to over 80% of the global user community, which numbers
approximately 120), and McGonigle has personally trained volcanologists
from Italy, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, the USA and the UK in his
novel hardware and software protocols for measuring volcanic gases.

This impact was recognised in McGonigle's Rolex Award for Enterprise and
has led to extensive media coverage through outlets such as the National
Geographic and Discovery channels, the BBC homepage (18
November 2008), and over 1,000 articles in 27 countries in print outlets
such as: The Telegraph, The Observer, El Pais, Le
Monde, International Herald Tribune, Wired, Esquire
and La Repubblica. McGonigle's research has also been profiled in
Geographical magazine (February 2009) and Italian Vogue
where he is cited as "one of the world's foremost volcanologists" and as
having caused "a minor revolution in the field".

Sources to corroborate the impact

S1. The supporting statement provided by the former Director of the
Montserrat Volcano Observatory corroborates the broad international reach
of the USB2000 and the significance of the approaches pioneered by
McGonigle for improving volcano monitoring and forecasting.

S2. The supporting statement provided by the volcanologist working within
the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazards Mitigation in Indonesia
corroborates the broad international reach of the USB2000, in particular
across the developing world, and the benefits of this approach over the
predecessor technology.

S3. The supporting statement provided by the scientist within the United
States Geological Survey corroborates the broad international reach of the
technologies developed by McGonigle, in addition to the significance of
them for improved volcano monitoring and forecasting efforts.

S4. The supporting statement provided by the scientist within the
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia corroborates the
significance of the approaches pioneered by McGonigle in terms of
improving the understanding of how volcanoes work and the benefits of this
for volcano monitoring and forecasting.

S5. The supporting statement provided by the member of the Kamchatka
Volcanic Eruption Response Team in Russia corroborates the user friendly
nature of the UVolc code and the benefit this has been to their monitoring
efforts.